[sf-perl] perl on a mac (this is going to take a major diversion)

Michael Friedman friedman at highwire.stanford.edu
Mon Nov 17 22:51:32 PST 2008


I meant no offense. I recognize he's a newbie to the Mac, but not to  
perl, and tried to offer only constructive advice. It's just the first  
line that is snarky and I probably should've deleted.

Apologies, to Walt and the list, if I was out of line. I wasn't  
intending a smack-down; just to point out that perhaps he's asking the  
wrong question.

-- Mike

On Nov 17, 2008, at 10:35 PM, Darin Fisher wrote:

> Sorry Mike but it's a lot more simple than that!
>
> This is a very experienced list and most of us avoid getting into  
> "religious" discussions.
> But, since I stuck my neck out, I will stay in it...
>
> The original question is from an obvious "newbie" (and seemingly a  
> pretty smart one from I can tell).
> A lot of us on this specific list have multiple disciplines and the  
> only reason I spoke when i did was when i couldn't stand it anymore.
> But your argument is just too inviting to old-school smack.
>
> And given that, try to remember when you were a newbie, we all were  
> at one point!
>
> (to everyone else, sorry for the soapbox!)
>
> -Darin
>
>
> Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is  
> serious.
> - Brendan Gill
>
>
> From: Michael Friedman <friedman at highwire.stanford.edu>
> To: Walt Sanders <wsanders at cruzio.com>; San Francisco Perl Mongers  
> User Group <sanfrancisco-pm at pm.org>
> Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 10:08:09 PM
> Subject: Re: [sf-perl] perl on a mac
>
> Walt,
>
> Maybe I'm just cranky today or maybe I'm too partisan, but I feel I  
> have to reply to "what a mess to go through for a supposedly  
> polished OS".
>
> Mac OS X does exactly what every other OS does when given the input  
> and output you've shown: if you run a perl script on the command- 
> line, and it uses print statements, it prints the output in that  
> same window. Whether the output happens to be text, HTML, or binary  
> data doesn't matter at all. Print is print.
>
> It sounds to me like on Windows you were running perl not from the  
> command-line but from a fancy IDE which would recognize that the  
> output was HTML and read it for you, copy it to a temporary file,  
> and open that file in your browser. This behavior sounds great, but  
> it's unrelated to the operating system (and perl itself, for that  
> matter). It's entirely a function of whatever IDE you were using  
> that just happened to run on Windows.
>
> To get the same behavior on OS X (or any other unix variant), you  
> can do what Alex Feinberg suggested seven days ago:
>     perl myscript.pl > /tmp/file.html && open /tmp/file.html
>
> which tells perl to run your script (so instead of "myscript.pl"  
> you'd use the path to your CGI script), take the output and write it  
> to a file instead of to the screen, and then open that file. (The  
> open command sees the extension ".html" and knows to open the file  
> in your default browser.) If this doesn't work, there are only a  
> couple of reasons:
>
> 1. "perl" isn't in your path. Use wherever you installed perl  
> instead. The built-in version is /usr/bin/perl.
>
> 2. Your script's output didn't properly parse as HTML. That can  
> cause a blank page to appear in the browser. In this case, you can  
> go read the temp file directly to see what happened or use "View  
> Source" on the blank browser page.
>
> If you are using BBEdit or TextMate or Eclipse or another heavy-duty  
> OS X text editor it should be easy to set this up as a menu option  
> within the editor.
>
> Setting up apache to use something more than the default  
> configuration is never an easy task, even on Windows. It's "messy"  
> like tuning a race car is messy -- it's a really complicated engine  
> because there's more power under the hood than you could possibly  
> use on the streets. But again, that's a "feature" of apache, not of  
> the OS.
>
> So, it seems to me that what you are really looking for is an IDE  
> that has support for debugging CGI scripts internally. One that just  
> happens to run on Mac OS X.
>
> I haven't used it personally, but I believe that this is available  
> in ActiveState's Komodo IDE, which runs on Windows, Mac OS X, or  
> Linux. You can find out more and download a demo from their website:
>     http://www.activestate.com/Products/komodo_ide/index.mhtml
>
> You should also check to see if the IDE you currently use on Windows  
> offers a Mac version. Some do.
>
>
> Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with your new Mac! I've been  
> programming perl on OS X for years now and have found it to be a  
> very good developer platform. The command-line shell takes some  
> getting used to if you've only used Windows's limited command shell,  
> but it's a great tool once you understand it.
>
> -- Mike Friedman
>
> PS - On a non-perl note, I highly recommend Take Control eBooks if  
> you want to learn more about your Mac.
>     http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/catalog.html
>
> They don't have one about the unix underpinnings or using the  
> command-line, so you may also want to check out one of the "Unix on  
> Mac OS X" books such as O'Reilly's _Learning Unix for Mac OS X  
> Tiger_. There are others, and that one's a little outdated, but it's  
> still almost entirely relevant for Leopard.
>
>
> On Nov 17, 2008, at 6:30 PM, Walt Sanders wrote:
>
> > Lara, I surely hope you had all this in a file to grab and send?!   
> My god what a mess to go through for a supposedly polished OS.  And  
> why doesn't Apple have this already configured, I'm wondering.
> >
> > Gotta go now and I'm away tomorrow, but will then try to digest  
> your instructions and give it a try.  I am at the point where I was  
> about to start advertising for a fixer to take my machine and make  
> it work.  But, this is new hope.  Many, many thanks and I'll report  
> back.  Walt.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Monday, at , Lara Ortiz de Montellano wrote:
> >
> >> 1. Re: perl on a mac (Walt Sanders)
> > _______________________________________________
> > SanFrancisco-pm mailing list
> > SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org
> > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm
>
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> Michael Friedman                    HighWire Press
> Phone: 650-725-1974                  Stanford University
> FAX:  270-721-8034                  <friedman at highwire.stanford.edu>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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Michael Friedman                     HighWire Press
Phone: 650-725-1974                  Stanford University
FAX:   270-721-8034                  <friedman at highwire.stanford.edu>
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